Sony To "Aggressively" Invest In First-Party Games Going Forward

The PlayStation business is currently riding high, and Sony intends to keep the train moving by investing "aggressively" in first-party game development and other areas. In an investor call, Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki said PlayStation's strategy for growth in the future will be composed of continuing to partner with external teams and also investing more in first-party.

"We intend to increase development personnel and other in-house costs by approximately 20 billion yen [$183 million] year-on-year, as we further strengthen our in-house software," he said, as translated by VGC. "To enhance our software offering, we intend to continue investing in partnering with external studios, in addition to aggressively investing in our in-house studios."

Totoki specifically mentioned PlayStation's new deal with Haven Entertainment, the new studio founded by Assassin's Creed designer Jade Raymond. Sony also recently struck a deal with former Halo, Destiny, and Call of Duty developers for a new multiplayer game.

Also during the call, Totoki said Sony will attempt to "enhance the social and platform capabilities of games" overall through, among other things, its new $200 million investment in Epic Games to help create a "metaverse."

These comments from Totoki come after PlayStation boss Jim Ryan said the PS5 may have more exclusives than PS4.

Sony's PlayStation business reported massive numbers for the latest quarter, with PlayStation 5 shipments reaching 7.8 million units. Sony also disclosed that, while the PS5 continues to be sold at a loss, the PlayStation unit had its best year ever. The PS5 is now said to be outselling the Xbox Series X|S by a 2:1 margin.

The next PlayStation event is the upcoming State of Play broadcast, which takes place this Thursday, April 29.